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These essays cover an array of novels, chiefly crime fiction, mostly of recent vintage and read in 2009. Additional details about the books themselves follow the essays. Currently there are three essays on this page. Three more essays are here and also here. More coming soon...
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Fictional detectives come in all guises, whether amateur or professional, male or female, experienced or newbie. While the amateurs are probably fairly rare in real life, they are a popular genre in mystery novels. In this month's review of a handful of crime novels and thrillers, I'll deal chiefly with police procedurals, one spy novel, but also a couple of lighter works featuring irrepressible amateurs.
First up is John Le Carre's latest (A Most Wanted Man, 2008) which features a possibly innocent refugee with apparent ties to Muslim extremists and Russian gangsters. Trying to broker a deal allowing freedom for Issa Karpov, the Chechen illegal alien, are Tommy Brue, a British banker based in Hamburg, Germany, and Annabel Richter, a lawyer and civil rights advocate. But they are up against a murky crew of German, British, and American secret agents with their sights on global security issues. The German spy Gunther Bachmann may remind some Le Carre aficionados of George Smiley. While this novel presents strong characters and clever plotting, the disastrous ending is pretty much a foregone conclusion.
Michael Connelly unites two of his many fans' favorite characters in The Brass Verdict (2008), a legal thriller and detective novel. Los Angeles defense attorney Mickey Haller and police investigator Harry Bosch come to terms in a scenario involving the murder of a lawyer whose case load Haller assumes unexpectedly. Among the legal shenanigans disclosed are jury tampering and a so-called 'magic bullet,' a piece of evidence that clears up most, if not all, of the damning evidence claimed by prosecutors. Bosch tries to trick Haller but finds the wily lawyer is no pushover. Is Haller's client guilty of murdering his wife? What about the FBI's interest in the matter? The plot is complicated but neatly, if somewhat emotionally, untangled at the end.
Burn Out by Marcia Muller (2008) is a private-investigator novel starring Sharon McCone, owner of a San Francisco detective agency and currently on sabbatical to reassess her life. While staying at the family ranch in the high desert near the Nevada border, Sharon naturally is drawn into a case involving murder and other crimes. But it is in befriending a horse that she finds balance in her life and vocation. Some sections, such as those establishing how depressed Sharon is, read a little slow, but there is plenty of action too, including Sharon's crashing of a small plane. There's rather a lot of traipsing about here, getting from one relevant location to another, although that is often the case in procedurals.
A London murder case recalls a notable crime from 1947-era Los Angeles in Lynda LaPlante's The Red Dahlia (2006). This British police procedural showcases detective inspector Anna Travis in a team headed by the workaholic DCI James Langton. Half the novel is spent looking for a prime suspect, but finally an anonymous caller gives them a name to follow up. The story is carefully plotted, with a final revelation of the chamber of horrors in the killer's basement and the unexpected escape of the suspect. The conclusion leaves a moral quandary for the investigators despite a measure of poetic justice.
Oklahoma in tornado season is the setting for Alice Blanchard's The Breathtaker (2003). Police chief Charles Grover adds his father to a list of suspects when storm chasers are pinpointed as the only ones likely to target houses and people in the path of quickly moving storms. The Debris Killer is apparently a madman who uses the cover of a tornado to find victims, impale them with sharpened fence posts and the like, and even removes teeth. Although the plotting is quite good, some readers will catch on to the likely killer early on and others will dislike the way the chief's daughter keeps getting into trouble and, eventually, into the killer's clutches. Details on the storm-chasing subculture add interest to this fine novel.
Back to London for Mark Billingham's Burried (2007) which starts out as a kidnapping investigation. The lead character, detective inspector Tom Thorne, is just one small cog in the police team, but his advice, instincts, and canny ability to be available at critical junctures allow him the insight to unravel a crucial but misleading assumption. The missing teenager is the son of a retired cop whose intrusion into the investigation is a lingering problem. In a related matter, a fugitive sought for a murder is found but then turns out not to have been guilty of that particular crime. An apparently unrelated, racially motivated killing is also resolved in the course of this methodical procedural. There is a thriller-style ending and satisfying denouement.
Amateur sleuth Gloria Lamerino stirs up a murder investigation in The Nitrogen Murder (2005) by Camille Minichino. Gloria, a retired physicist, and her partner homicide detective Matt Gennaro, who is recovering from cancer treatment, arrive in California for a wedding but stumble upon murder, fraud, and industrial spying. Gloria stays out of the way of the standard police investigation, enjoys traveling around Berkeley, manages to conduct a few science tutorials, finds out where the missing groom has been staying and why, and manages to catch the killer at the wedding party. This is a relatively gentle, not gritty like others mentioned above, story and, while not terribly believable, is pleasantly crafted and adequately paced. Some familiarity with returning characters in this series, which features science lessons as necessary for figuring out key parts of the mystery, may add to the reader's enjoyment.
Amateur investigators of an entirely different sort may be found in Emily Brightwell's Mrs. Jeffries Sweeps the Chimney (2004). In this Victoria-era mystery, part of a long-running series, the household staff of a London homicide detective engage in seeking out crucial information to ensure that their relatively clueless master gets credit for solving the case. The housekeeper, Mrs. Jeffries, parcels out assignments, mulls over the resulting clues, and figures out how to bring the suspects to justice. In this novel, there are lots of red herrings associated with the murder of a clergyman, newly returned from a decade spent in India, and the discovery of a skeleton in a chimney at an address noted on paper held in the dead man's hand. The detective's servants, very eager to ferret out the details of this case, are also assisted by close friends, a rich American and her British butler. This one is a nice little murder mystery in the Agatha Christie style.
Deborah Crombie's Where Memories Lie (2008) is a standard police procedural, devoid of amateur antics, but featuring the partnership of Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid, British detectives who are cohabitants with kids to consider. Gemma's friend Erika recognizes a piece of jewelry in an auction catalog and asks for Gemma's help. This simple request begins a chain of events leading to several deaths but also ends in the discovery of who killed Erika's husband 50 years earlier. The novel intertwines the original investigation into the death of Erika's husband with the current case. Other subplots feature Gemma's family life, including her mother newly diagnosed with cancer and her father struggling with his bakery business. One of her sons finds out key information from Erika, an elderly woman who doesn't hesitate to step in to help catch the killer for the thriller-type ending.
So, there you have it--a few police procedurals and a couple of amateur investigations--with the bad guys discovered and dispatched and the mysteries solved one way or another. Unlike real life, fictional crime stories usually have a satisfying resolution or perhaps a thoughtful commentary on the important things in life. The stories, too, are often fun, puzzling and cryptic, while real life crime is typically mundane, sad, and chronic. Still, spending a few hours with fictional crime-solvers is relaxing, entertaining, occasionally informative and intriguing, and provides some inkling of other lives, other world views and thought processes, and characters one would never hope to meet in person.
Some offsite links:
-Marcia Muller's site for Burn Out
-Mark Billingham's site for Buried
-Michael Connelly's site for The Brass Verdict
-Deborah Crombie's site for Where Memories Lie
-Emily Brightwell's website
A Most Wanted Man: a Novel, by John Le Carre. Scribner, New York, 2008. Hardcover. ISBN 978-1-4165-9488-8.
The Brass Verdict: a Novel, by Michael Connelly. Little, Brown and Co., New York, 2008. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-316-16629-4.38191-2.
Burn Out, by Marcia Muller. Grand Central Publishing, New York, 2008. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-446-58107-3.
The Red Dahlia, by Lynda LaPlante. A Touchstone Book. Simon & Schuster, New York, 2006. Paperback. ISBN 978-1-4165-3219-4.
The Breathtaker, by Alice Blanchard. Warner Books, 2003. Hardcover. ISBN 0-446-53139-1.
Buried, by Mark Billingham. Harper, HarperCollins, New York, 2007. Paperback. ISBN 978-0-06-125701-8.
The Nitrogen Murder: A Periodic Table Mystery, by Camille Minichino. Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Minotaur, New York, 2005. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0312-33383-6.
Where Memories Lie, by Deborah Crombie. William Morrow, HarperCollins, New York, 2008. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-06-128751-0.
Mrs. Jeffries Sweeps the Chimney, by Emily Brightwell. Berkley Prime Crime, New York, 2004. Paperback. ISBN 0-425-19391-8.
This month's roundup of recently read mysteries features police procedurals in a variety of settings, from Dublin to New Orleans to Beijing and back again, with a couple of serial killer cases and thrillers to leaven the mix. The Dublin novel, "The Midnight Choir" by Gene Kerrigan (2006), is a morality tale as well as retelling of investigations of crime cases; for the lead character, detective Synott, proves to be a little too intent on closing the books on villains, a character flaw which catches him out in the end. This story is a closely woven one, with scenes shifting from character to character, as the reader discovers who will get away with murder or other crimes and who will be trapped by fate and happenstance.
Drug running appears to motivate murderous activity in Vermont, Maine, and points north in Archer Mayor's "The Catch" (2008), which finds supercop Joe Gunther coordinating with different law enforcement agencies to seek out the killer of a Vermont patrolman. Much of the novel is spent in Maine, where the plotlines follow intrigues among fishermen and the lure of dealing in pharmaceutical-grade pills and tablets; but the underlying mystery involves a twist which can only be uncovered back in Vermont. There are some interesting supporting players, including women police officers and even a couple of female bad guys.
Larger than life good-guy Joe Pike manages a thrill ride called "The Watchman" (2007) by Robert Crais. The body count is very high as Pike strives to protect a federal witness and seeks to discover the sources of betrayal in a case that starts out as a relatively minor traffic accident. Pike appears to fall for the witness, a rich party girl named Larkin, but never lets emotions get in the way of taking out the bad guys. Larkin seems to grow up during the course of five harrowing days; yet, there she is at the end, once again tearing through Los Angeles in the dawn hours in a shiny new car. This novel is a quick read, with colorful bit players, and plenty of action.
For a fascinating blend of crime investigation and culture clash, a good choice is Lisa See's "Flower Net" (1997), which devotes equal time to uncovering murderers and other criminals in Los Angeles and in Beijing. Chinese detective Liu Hulan teams up with assistant U.S. attorney David Stark. Of course, the two are not strangers as both worked as young lawyers in the same L.A. firm and also, of course, are reunited as lovers. Diplomats and crime bosses are treated with kid gloves but still interrogated closely. Incidents dating from the Cultural Revolution have a bearing on the investigation. Gruesome deaths abound but, at last, Hulan and David find a resolution. There are some loose ends and overly frequent coincidences but, overall, this one is worth the effort.
Taking a different tack is the smart-alecky storytelling of James D. Doss in "Snake Dreams" (2008). Here we find 7-foot-tall tribal investigator Charlie Moon as the calm center of a storm where guns and pickup trucks are lost and, more significantly, found again in telling circumstances. That there is a murder to be solved seems almost peripheral to the madcap scrapes of Moon's aunt, who is a Ute shaman given to weird visions, and her young ward, a shaman in training. Devious females, who easily best the bad guys, are celebrated in this fun mystery where a new adventure appears to be waiting just around the corner.
More complicated, and possibly overpopulated with suspicious and intriguing characters, is Lee Wood's "Kingdom of Lies" (2005), a mystery combining murder with historical research into English royalty. Amateur sleuthing and regular police investigating are combined here as a history professor attending a conference in Kent insists on looking into the puzzling drowning death of a colleague. Sergeant Keen Dunliffe copes with the historian as well as with unfriendly London coppers, rather violent secret service types, and unresponsive witnesses. The research angle involves a book the drowned woman was writing about George III's first wife, a Quaker, from whom he may never have been legally divorced and by whom he had several children.
Another mystery with a British setting, "Wolves of Memory" (2005) by Bill James, focuses on the resettlement of a so-called supergrass, a former criminal turned police informant. Assistant Chief Constable Iles and Detective Chief Superintendent Harper are in charge of this witness-protection detail, which includes new names and housing for the informant and his wife and two young children. Conversations about the new names and about whether the informant can reconcile with his former crime boss are endless and become rather annoying for the reader. However, as a plot device, the repetitive but actually rather clever conversations, very effectively set up the twist ending.
Rome is the setting for David Hewson's decidedly melodramatic "The Seventh Sacrament" (2007), a serial-killer thriller revolving around a 14-year-old missing child case. Additional ingredients are an ancient religious cult and little known archaeological sites, plus rivalry and politicking up and down the police hierarchy. Series regulars, Inspector Leo Falcone and detectives Nic Costa and Gianni Peroni, investigate the motives of apparently crazed Giorgio Bramante, the archaeologist recently released from prison for killing the presumed abductor of his young son 14 years earlier. Along with pathologist Teresa Lupo and former FBI agent Emily Costa, Falcone and the others race to find out what happened to Alessio Bramante all those years ago when he was left alone in an underground cave near a Mithraic sacrificial altar. Falcone is set up to be Bramante's last victim, the seventh sacramental sacrifice, and features prominently in a unexpected ending.
Lastly, there is "Killer Takes All" (2005) by Erica Spindler. Here the setting is pre-Katrina New Orleans and the focus is a fantasy role playing game, one with unusually high stakes. Although the dialogue and descriptions are cliché riddled, the plot features enough twists to keep dedicated gamers and determined readers interested in seeing what happens next. The heroine Stacy Killian is a former cop turned graduate student. The official investigators Spencer Malone, also a love interest for Stacy, and his partner Tony Sciame, a family man, give Stacy plenty of leeway, but find themselves frequently coming to her rescue as she enmeshes herself further into the underground game called "White Rabbit," an RPG based on the "Alice in Wonderland" story. More detail about playing the game might have made this mystery a little more convincing. Still, the nearly unending series of whodunit twists, leading to a "last man standing," works pretty well.
This varied collection of novels may well appeal only to crime mystery buffs (you know who you are) and not to the general run of fiction aficionados. Imagined investigations, analyzed motives, and character interactions are expected, but the added spice of colorful locations, plot twists and red herrings, and exotic subcultures enliven all of these works, making them worthwhile leisure-time reading. Pick one and enjoy the case!
Some offsite links:
-author site for Robert Crais' The Watchman
-publisher site for James D. Doss' Snake Dreams
-author site for David Hewson's The Seventh Sacrament
The Midnight Choir, by Gene Kerrigan. Europa Editions, New York, 2006. Paperback. ISBN 978-1-933372-26-6.
The Catch: a Joe Gunther Novel, by Archer Mayor. St. Martin's Minotaur, New York, 2008. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-312-38191-2.
The Watchman, by Robert Crais. Simon & Schuster, New York, 2007. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-7432-8163-8.
Flower Net: a Novel, by Lisa See. Random House, New York, 1997. Paperback ISBN 978-0-8129-7868-1.
Snake Dreams, by James D. Doss. St. Martin's Minotaur, New York, 2008. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-312-36460-1.
Kingdom of Lies, by Lee Wood. St. Martin's Minotaur, New York, 2005. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-312-34030-8.
Wolves of Memory, by Bill James. The Countryman Press, Woodstock, VT, 2005. Paperback. ISBN 978-0-88150-781-2.
The Seventh Sacrament, by David Hewson. Macmillan, London, 2007. Hardcover. ISBN 978-1-4050-5022-7.
Killer Takes All,"by Erica Spindler. MIRA Books, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada, 2005. Hardcover. ISBN 0-7783-2186-x.
This month's book roundup features a varied mix of mysteries and thrillers, of stories with a hint of comedy and ones with an extraordinary burden of tragedy, and of remote and familiar settings. Detectives, assassins, artists, lawyers, and spies are lead characters or sidekicks and good guys or bad guys. There's a suspicious CSI character in Oregon and a warmly reassuring lady detective in Botswana, a flakey painter in San Francisco and a supermom who is also a sheriff in Arizona, a Japanese-American contract killer who is a global traveler and a retired cop who must find someone with a new identity before contract killers find her. These novels are all recently published and recommended for leisure reading.
First, let's look at Hailey Lind's "Brush with Death" (2007, paperback) where artist/sleuth Annie Kinkaid once again fails to stay out of trouble while working on a cemetery restoration project. Crypt thieves, a possible lost Raphael masterpiece, and keeping Annie's art-forger grandfather out of Interpol's clutches figure into the story-line. Her landlord is a security expert with ties to the FBI and her love interest, a supposedly reformed international art thief, is apparently turning over a new leaf and setting up as an art security consultant. Annie's friends and assistants include a Goth girlfriend, a plus-sized biker chick, a Bosnian sculptor and his whole extended family, an anthropology grad student, and an elderly diabetic woman who may have held the key to the Raphael mystery the whole time. This novel also includes details about faux finishing techniques.
Sheriff Joanna Brady investigates four deaths occurring on one weekend in "Damage Control" by J.A. Jance (2008, hardcover). One event is an apparent double suicide, another finds a man dead in a mobile-home fire, and the last proves to be a body in a trash bag which washed out from a shallow grave after a huge rainstorm. Joanna deals with the squabbling daughters of the parents who drove their car off a scenic cliffside viewpoint in front of a lunchtime crowd of witnesses. The husband of one of the daughters acts suspiciously; additionally, his parents too had died recently. Meanwhile, the mobile-home case is ruled accidental, with faulty wiring cited as the cause; the displaced family moves into a newly fixed-up place on Joanna's property. On the personal side, Joanna is dealing also with a newborn baby, a teenage daughter, a writer husband who wants to go on book tour, and a mother who has been acting strangely. The body in the trash bag turns out to be that of a disabled woman who had gone missing from a group home. A subplot follows the theme of husbands cheating on wives and involves Joanna's idealized father who has been dead for many years.
Professional killer John Rain discovers that he has a son in "The Last Assassin" by Barry Eisler (2006, hardcover). This stunning news causes John to relax his usual attentive caution and actually make a mistake. Rectifying the mistake results in a high body count as this thriller follows Rain and two sidekicks on travels from Paris to New York, Rio, Barcelona, and especially to Tokyo. However, the people killed all appear to deserve their fate. Featured among the methods of killing are sniper fire, beheadings, knife fights, and chemically induced heart attacks. John's tender feelings for his son are a sharp contrast to his cool demeanor when working on targets. A high-class gentlemen's club in Tokyo is the scene of one massacre; but the bodies also fall in New York, where the jazz-pianist mother of John's son resides.
Police detective Dan Cooper and local sleuths Drew Slocombe and Maggs puzzle over a missing young woman and also over a missing little girl in Rebecca Tope's "The Sting of Death" (2002, hardcover). Convoluted family relationships and previous histories muddy the waters in this mystery which is dense with characters, all seemingly acting out of sorts. When not unraveling puzzling cases, Drew and Maggs run an undertaking and burial business on private land. Dan takes a shine to Maggs as they try to figure out what happened and who did whatever. Outspoken personality Roma, the mother of the original missing young woman, fusses with her beehives amid the chaos as an altogether different young woman turns up murdered. Questions linger about guilt and innocence right up to the end. Readers who don't appreciate stories where little kids die, whether from leukemia or accidentally, probably should give this novel a miss.
Ex-detective Jack Till decides he must find a former client whom he helped gain a new identity in order to escape unknown killers in Thomas Perry's "Silence" (2007, paperback). Now, six years after her engineered disappearance, the former Wendy Harper's testimony that she is actually still alive is necessary to prevent the conviction of a man accused of her murder on circumstantial evidence. A married team of contract killers targeting Wendy follow Jack as he tries to figure out who and where the hidden Wendy is. Back-stories for all of the characters are detailed in this suspenseful and absorbing tale, which features unexpected twists right up to the ending. Wendy must give up a cushy life with a husband and children (not her own) and may find happiness with Jack whose own wife left him after given birth to a daughter with Down's Syndrome. The final revelation of who the ultimate bad guy is comes as an anti-climax, while the contract-killer team looks set to take each other out while vacationing in Spain.
Judith Cutler's "Life Sentence" (2005, hardcover) is a police procedural set in Kent, Great Britain, where Chief Superintendent Fran Harman, nearing retirement, focuses on an almost cold case involving a comatose patient whose identity has never been discovered. There's also a child-abduction case where her expertise and gift for intuition leads to a happy resolution. This novel piles on the office politics, but also delivers a nice love interest which contrasts with the ill-temper displayed by Fran's relatives. In fact, while the querulousness of Fran's parents and animosity of her older sister seem a bit over the top, these annoying habits do offer an explanation for Fran's go-it-alone style of investigation. Readers may be left wondering what Fran will do next after she retires, because it seems obvious that burying herself in the country to contemplate her garden is not a likely scenario.
In "Proof Positive," by Philip Margolin (2006, paperback) lawyers must deal with difficult clients and damning evidence. Sometimes this evidence seems a little too good or too convenient to be true, especially when relatively honest villains proclaim their innocence. The murders of a criminologist and of a defense lawyer finally lead father-daughter lawyers Amanda and Frank Jaffe to the truth. There are some realistic courtroom scenes, as well as forensic details of interest to fans of CSI-type television series. This story, set in Portland, Oregon, does not feature much local color, although some landmarks and neighborhoods are briefly described. The author, solid in his characterizations and plotting, keeps up the suspense but never loses sight of the perils faced by innocent and not-so-innocent defendants.
For a change of pace, let's travel to Africa for "The Miracle at Speedy Motors," by Alexander McCall Smith (2008, hardcover). Here we find Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of a ladies' detective agency in Botswana's capital city, working on cases featuring a long-lost relative and a writer of anonymous letters. Characters already well established in this ongoing series show up to break new ground: perennial mechanic apprentice Charlie and very particular associate detective Grace Makutsi actually say nice things to other and even join forces to resolve the problem of a too-large bed; orphanage matron Mma Potokwane, as usual insisting on securing the unpaid services of Mma Ramotswe's husband, auto specialist Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, succeeds in providing information on the missing-relative case; Mma Ramotse's treasured tiny white van develops a mysterious knocking sound and may finally be running its last miles; Grace's fiance Phuti Radiphuti proves very understanding in the matter of the overlarge bed and even enjoys taking part in a case Grace is handling on her own; and, lastly, the crippled daughter of Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is not downcast by the failure of an attempted cure. This wonderful novel provides a well-woven plot, leavened with sad and happy events, in a peaceful, even bucolic, setting.
Spies run amok in David Wolstencroft's "Contact Zero" (2005, hardcover). This thriller fairly reeks with betrayal and sends it protagonists all over the world from their starting point, spy school in London. Ben Sinclair and cohorts Lucy, Jamie, and Ned discover that they are the last survivors of their class of newly minted spies. But now they are also wanted fugitives, with blown covers and assorted trumped-up charges filed against them. They travel first to find each other and then set out on an arduous quest to find the legendary, possibly mythical, Contact Zero, which may be a person or an organization or merely some sort of safe haven for UK ex-spies. This novel is fast-paced, with puzzling clues to be deciphered, odd folks to be questioned, and insidious betrayal to be revealed. Somehow, these intrepid young people have plenty of money and false passports and tricks up their sleeves. When finally found, Contact Zero is not at all what was expected. There are some loose ends here, and a couple of typos too, but there's lots of adventure to satisfy armchair spy-story aficionados.
This set of nine novels offers glimpses into worlds most of us will never know except in stories. Some of the tales are mesmerizing and all are well written, with memorable characters and featuring neat or clever or preposterous plots. Take your pick and relax with a good book!
Some offsite links:
-author site for Barry Eisler The Last Assassin
-author site for Judtih Cutler Life Sentence
-author site for Philip Margolin's Proof Positive
-publisher site for Silence by Thomas Perry
-Hailey Lind's website
Brush with Death: an Art Lover's Mystery, by Hailey Lind. A Signet Book, New American Library, New York, 2007. Paperback. ISBN 978-0-451-22179-7.
Damage Control, by J.A. Jance. William Morrow, HarperCollins, New York, 2008. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-06-074676-6.
The Last Assassin, by Barry Eisler. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 2006. Hardcover. ISBN 0-399-15359-4.
The Sting of Death, by Rebecca Tope. St. Martin's Minotaur, New York, 2002. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0312-31655-6.
Silence, by Thomas Perry. An Otto Penzler Book. A Harvest Book. Harcourt, New York, 2007. Paperback. ISBN 978-0-15-60330-5.
Life Sentence, by Judith Cutler. Allison & Busby, London, 2005. Hardcover. ISBN 0-7490-8276-3.
Proof Positive, by Philip Margolin. Harper, HarperCollins, New York, 2006. Paperback. ISBN 978-0-06-073506-7.
The Miracle at Speedy Motors, by Alexander McCall Smith. Pantheon Books, New York, 2008. Hardcover. ISBN 978-0-375-42448-9.
Contact Zero: a Novel,"by David Wolstencroft. Dutton, New York, 2005. Hardcover. ISBN 0-525-94902-x.
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